Plans progressing on Basehor library

Members of the Basehor Community Library board are hammering out an agreement with a Lawrence architectural firm to design a new library building.

The firm was chosen from about 10 firms that applied to serve as architect on the project.

"We met at their offices, so we could see how they worked and what they did," said Carla Kaiser, director of the library.

A contract between the library and the firm should be finalized in the next week or two, she said. Once it's approved, the architects will begin designing a new library, which will be constructed on 158th Street, just north of U.S. Highway 24-40, on land donated by Basehor resident Ray Breuer.

When the design is further along, Kaiser said, board members will be able to determine how large a bond issue they will ask library patrons to approve. The library serves an area that is bounded generally by Leavenworth County Road 8 on the north, Kansas Highway 7 on the east, Kansas Highway 32 on the south and 183rd Street on the west.

No firm date has been set for a vote on a bond issue, Kaiser said.

"The tentative date that we're looking at is in early April," she added.

Early discussions centered on a new library that would contain about 22,000 square feet, and Kaiser said that size still is in the ballpark.

Currently, the library's collection of 18,000 books is housed in a rented 4,000-square-foot building that is at 2812 N. 155th St.

A fund-raiser this summer raised nearly $5,000 for the library. Donors pledged money for every home-game home run scored by the Kansas City T-Bones baseball team.